Warren Buffett Says Bye-Bye To Walmart

The Sage of Omaha has spoken when it comes to Walmart — and the result is not good for the Bentonville-based mega-retailer. Walmart may be the biggest retailer on Earth, according to sales, but Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has mostly cashed out its stock.

The move does not come as a complete shock — Buffett cut his stake in early 2016 — but the recent cut was a much, much bigger bit. According to emerging reports, as Walmart was announcing its $3 billion acquisition of Jet.com, Buffett was slashing his remaining Walmart stake by 70 percent. These days, Berkshire Hathaway has less than $1 billion left in Walmart — down from around $3 billion at the half-way point in 2016.

The news of the Buffett bail comes at a difficult time for Walmart. Thus far, 2016 has been a relatively strong year, but share price took a bit of a hit in Q3 when the Buffett reduction when through. The stock has since seen its price falter and decline — 5 percent in the last three months.

At the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in April, Buffett noted the difficulties that brick and mortar players are having against upstart players like Amazon.

Instead of voting in that battle for dominance with his dollars, Buffett has instead decided to fly out of the fight by investing in airlines. Buffett is purchasing up shares in American Airlines, Delta and United-Continental with combined positions worth $1.6 billion.

Those shares are starting to pay off some — thus far, the shares have netted Buffett $280 million, or a return of 21 percent return on the new stakes — since the end of September. That’s a nice payout for a man who said — as recently as 2013 — that he didn’t much favor investing in airlines.

“Investors have poured their money into airlines and airline manufacturers for 100 years with terrible results,” Buffett said at the time. “It’s been a death trap for investors.”